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'SoundBreaker' with Bob Shami, where we uncover remarkable success stories in the music industry. Join host Bob Shami as he chats with industry leaders who defied norms and blazed their own unconventional paths to success. Get ready for raw and uplifting behind-the-scenes stories that unveil how these remarkable individuals made their breakthroughs in the music world.
Bob Shami (00:01)
Welcome to Soundbreaker. On today's episode, we are talking to Peter Sinclair, who is a CEO and co -founder at Beat Bread. Love the name, Beat Bread. Peter, thank you for joining us today. And for our listeners who might not be familiar with you, could you please introduce
Peter Sinclair (00:16)
Hi, sorry, Thanks for having
Bob Shami (00:17)
My pleasure.
Absolutely. Peter, before we dive into it, is it possible to take us just a bit back in your early days? Possibly teenage and what get you really kind of, should I say, focused, passionate about the music business? Was it something with the family or a friend, you're part of a band? Just give us a little bit of that and take us to the future.
Peter Sinclair (00:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. So, you know, I would always describe and always do describe myself as an accidental participant in the music industry. I would have never I grew up in a very, very small town, literally in the middle of the woods. couldn't see a house from my house in rural Vermont and never thought in a million years I'd live in Los Angeles or work in entertainment. I, you know, went to school and I met a girl and I moved to Los Angeles.
And then, even then, never thought that I would work in entertainment. I have a child who has severe autism. And I was working at startups in different industries. And I had to leave the startups because things were just so crazy at home. And literally, Recruiter called me out of the blue. And Universal Music was looking to hire someone who'd had success in startups, which I had had, and who never worked in music before. That was actually a job requirement.
And so that's the accidental way that I backed in the music industry back almost 10 years
Bob Shami (01:35)
Wow, what a pretty interesting accidental situation. Love it. Okay, let's come back to the future and we say, how did you experience that McKinsey shape your approach to business and leadership?
Peter Sinclair (01:38)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so first of all, let me just say I would not trade my experience at McKinsey for the world. I did not go to business school. I was one of the lucky folks who was hired there out of business school. I learned a lot about business. Um, that said, I also need to say that those videos circulating that make fun of McKinsey are 100 % spot on and I laugh at them. Um, there's much truth in jest. Um, but you know, McKinsey, I learned how to talk to lots of different kinds of people.
how to structure a problem. But I very quickly knew that I did not want to work in some gigantic corporation for my entire life on episodic projects. I like digging in a little deeper into a problem for a longer period of time and really owning it. So I learned a bit about myself, but it also opened a lot of doors for me. And then Provide was sort of the opposite experience. Provide was all about getting things done. There was no pretense.
There was no emphasis on a fancy background or a fancy degree. One of the smartest CEOs, Bill Strauss, I've ever worked with. I learned a ton from him in my very brief time there. And he never graduated from college. But he is honestly one of the smartest people I've ever worked with. And interesting, at Green Dot, my next gig, Street, also one of the most impressive people that I've ever worked with, also dropped out of college.
Bob Shami (02:55)
Wow.
Peter Sinclair (03:06)
And so I think the value of, you know, stake over sizzle and just getting things done and really sound judgment is something that I really value in both those experiences post McKinsey. McKinsey was very much about pedigree. not saying there weren't smart people there, but it lacked the level of substance that I really valued at those next two companies.
Bob Shami (03:28)
Well, Green Dot, let's talk about it for a second. mean, you can, what were the key, I would say, lessons that you learned with scaling business during your time at Green Dot?
Peter Sinclair (03:37)
Yeah. I think, I think, you know, the lesson at, you know, Green Dot, I worked in a couple of roles before I started the direct to consumer division there. We were primarily retail business. And so I learned the business for about two years. And then we wanted to go direct to consumer and it literally started with me and a whiteboard and a little bit of support from the president of the company. And then we hired some developers and then we tested a couple of different offers.
Um, some of them failed. Um, and then, and then we really figured it out and then we scaled and then we were doing, you know, more than $50 million a year, uh, in, less than two years. And it has since gone on to even bigger. And I think, you know, really focusing on the component pieces of what makes a successful business. How do you make something that is operationally simple, that is easy to explain, um,
makes money at the base level, but also really works for the consumer. And not getting ahead of yourself and trying to grow something too quickly, too fast, and just getting it right. Because once you've got it right, then you can scale it. And that was the first time that I was directly involved from sort of day zero on a business. And that was a very rewarding experience. So yeah, just keep to the basics and don't get too impatient.
with result fundamentals
Bob Shami (05:00)
You know, I guess working on McKinsey and Green Dot kind of gave you that ammunition and the experience when you went and worked for Universal Music Groups, you were responsible of that rapid kind of revenue growth in their commerce channel. Tell us about
Peter Sinclair (05:14)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, listen, it was a great run and I met great people at McKinsey, sorry, McKinsey, but also at Universal. Universal was there for about five years. You know, I had a ton of help. My boss is Michelle Anthony, who really opened a lot of doors for me because, you Universal is, it's not really one company. It's a series of labels. They're, they're consolidating, but even within the label.
There are different people with different relationships with artists, and it's really actually a really fragmented and decentralized place. The artist is at the center and the company is just sort of trying to serve the artist, and it's very hard to do things in a coordinated way. So I would have gotten nowhere without the help of her. And then because I was new to the music industry, I hired some folks who had experience because I literally knew nothing.
to help me sort of speak the language and navigate. So Matthew Tilly, who is now our head of artist relations at BeatBread, was one of my first hires. So I had a ton of help, including from the label presidents. So, you know, that was really helpful. I think in terms of the success we had there, you know, I inherited the commerce business. It was globally less than $10 million when I started. It was more than 200 million when I finished. But honestly, that's not a function
Bob Shami (06:27)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (06:32)
of any particular genius of me or anyone on my team. It just wasn't a priority for the business when I started and the business was changing as I walked in. And so there was a bit of serendipity and also, as my father always used to tell me, you can't fall off the floor. There's a billion dollar opportunity for e -commerce and universal. it's by the way, way bigger now than since I've left.
Bob Shami (06:57)
Mm
Peter Sinclair (06:59)
And it just was an untapped opportunity and I really had to just not screw it up, if I can be totally honest.
Bob Shami (07:05)
So you came in, you integrated your business finance background and also tech background. You kind of integrated both into Universal and that's what really drove the growth. I wouldn't say where they are now, but you know what I mean, you contribute a lot to that
Peter Sinclair (07:24)
Yeah, I mean, just to be clear, it was just the e -commerce piece, right? mean, fundamentally, what drives that business is the arias and the music, right? And e -commerce is a nice way to monetize around that and, you know, goose some chart numbers and week one and week two. But, you know, as big as that business is today, it's still, you know, a very small portion of the total business. You know, I think in terms of integration, it's really hard, frankly. I
Bob Shami (07:27)
Yes.
Absolutely.
Peter Sinclair (07:49)
On the point of integration and really getting technology right, I would say it was more frustration than success. We were able to motivate artists to do things on pretty simple technology there. And really the experience of seeing how hard it was for a one company to try and serve all the unique circumstances of artists.
was one of the insights that led to Beat Bread because we never did it right as well as it could have been because every artist is different and it is impossible as smart as everyone is that I work for the Universal and almost every single one of was really good at their job. the music industry is so fragmented and there's so many different kinds of artists. It is impossible knowing how good you are to serve well.
Bob Shami (08:23)
Mm
Peter Sinclair (08:38)
each artist the same, right? There's just something about fit and focus and all those things. And so, you know, it was more about Michelle's success in getting the label presence behind the idea of using some very basic technology to push e -commerce. I wanted to do something where we were going to centralize a bunch of data and really be the sort of central engine that would drive a bunch of new audience for artists.
We never succeeded at that. And it's just because I think it's basically impossible in the music industry to be that centralized. And so, BeatBread, the idea is rather than try to be all things to all people, find a way to let artists pick their own marketing team, their own producers, their own strategy, and then have a financing solution
is interoperable with all those different situations. So we have an unbundled finance solution, and we don't offer any services or any marketing, not because services and marketing aren't important, but because they're so important. And it's so hard to do it in a sort monolithic one size fits all way, if that makes sense.
Bob Shami (09:50)
No, it's not gonna work. You see, you know, you've been through it all obviously and you came in to the music business and you don't leave the music business, but you said, hey, there's something missing there and you took all of that experience and you started BeatBread, which is I was on, I was on your platform the other day and I was, I said, I never seen anything like this. This is new. He's not a bank. He's not, he's not given loans. He's funding. He's like literally the VC for music artists, which doesn't exist. Honestly, it's a genius idea and
Peter Sinclair (10:08)
Thank
Yep. Yep. Yep. Thank
Bob Shami (10:19)
Absolutely. just going back for a sec to Universal, not to put Universal now, the leading record. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. But the music business in general, I'm sure you learned that, that fundamentally it's very old and it's very hard to push new ways and new ideas. It's not that easy. Beside the political game that you would have to
Peter Sinclair (10:25)
No, they're the best. And what they are, they're the best.
Yup.
Bob Shami (10:45)
or the political ladder game that you would have to work if you were in a court big, you know, one of the top five labels, major labels. It just, it's set in certain ways that is very, very hard to change. There's always a pushback for technology, for new ideas. You know, it's like the Supreme Court, they don't have a bunch of 25, 30, 40 year old sitting there. You're talking 80, 70, 90 year olds.
And they're set with their own ways. So they go by old ways of doing things. I don't know, it's because there are profits, you know, it takes a minute for them to set and to make things profitable and they don't want to get out of it. You know, it was such a hard thing when the music business went from physical to digital. Major pushback, major. Then in the end, when the minute they cave in, didn't cave in that easy. They cave in and they were owning so much of it that they made sure all the money still comes to them
Peter Sinclair (11:40)
Yeah, I mean, think what the majors are good at is, you I think all artists, whether you're on a major or not, even if you're independent, it's a good thing that Sony, Warner and Universal are negotiating with YouTube, Spotify and Apple, right? And there's some sort of bargaining power that happens that washes over to the independent sector. So I think they're good at that
they're also very good at the stuff that really still requires gatekeepers and relationships, right? So whether it's a major label or someone with a skillset of a major label, know, something like the Queen movie doesn't happen without people who understand the music industry, have contacts with the major studios, like all those things are great. So once an artist is like become an icon,
I still think there's no better place for them to live than a major label.
Bob Shami (12:37)
Yeah, I mean even the Doors movie, if you remember back in the day when they came out with the movie, The Doors. You remember that movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Peter Sinclair (12:42)
Yeah, that's right. The doors and, you know, they're more coming, right? And so that kind of stuff where it's about, you know, entertainment power brokers, I think that the majors are great, right? I think what you see, is majors are shedding frontline staff. You know, the CEO of Sony has been very overt that catalog acquisition is their strategy.
Bob Shami (12:47)
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Peter Sinclair (13:06)
And it's sort of like the pharma industry, right? In the pharma industry, Merck and Bayer, they don't discover any new drugs. Biotechs do all that development work, do the hard work, develop the drug, and then once it's a blockbuster, then they just go and they distribute it. Right. And so I think that's sort of a good analogy for what has already happened, but I think will continue to happen in the music industry.
Bob Shami (13:14)
Yes. Yeah. Correct. Yes.
Yes, yes, take over. It's like, you we're own this.
Peter Sinclair (13:34)
I think it's a little scarier for the majors than for Merck or those guys, because Merck has sort of, there's regulatory connections it has that are important. You know, unless you're 30 years into your career and you really reach that icon status, it's not clear that, you know, the next Beyonce really needs a major anymore. But there is a role to play for the majors. I just think it's a much smaller role than in his history.
If that makes sense.
Bob Shami (14:02)
Yes. So let's talk about BeatBread. Where the idea came from, you know, obviously you did think outside of the box. You didn't say, I'm going to do what the majors do, but a little different. No, you just thought of a whole new idea, a whole new, you added another way in the, or another, how should I say, another platform to the music business. You didn't take an existing platform. like, you know what, I'm to do something. So where the idea just came from, because funding artists is amazingly clever.
Peter Sinclair (14:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I
Bob Shami (14:32)
You know, if you know what you're doing because you need to get the money back because you're dumping all this money
Peter Sinclair (14:35)
Yeah, I think it's, mean, if I can be honest about it, it's the things that led to Bebred were ignorance and pain. So, I had the benefit of ignorance in that I walked into universal music in Q1 of 2015. And if you look at global recorded music industries, I literally walked in at the bottom, right? I'm one of the few people that's been in the music industry now for as long as I have, who's never seen it do anything other
Bob Shami (14:58)
Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (15:05)
Right. That's just dumb luck and all those things. But when I walked in, things were changing very rapidly. Streaming was less than a billion dollars, but people are starting to see legs on it. And so I think I had the benefit of ignorance and fresh eyes. Point one. Point two is I was hired to grow this e -commerce business and super fans and VIPs at shows all the end, like, possibly build this big data platform, which we never succeeded at.
Bob Shami (15:29)
Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (15:31)
What I found was about half the artists managers that my boss, Michelle Anthony, would have me go talk to, and she was fantastic, hated my guts before they even had any reason to know me. I never met them. I never done anything. I never committed to anything. And the reason was that they'd signed these big major label deals and I was going in to sell them on VIP.
e -commerce, CRM data, and half those managers didn't need me. Like literally one manager walked me across the street and said, oh, you mean digital strategy? And he showed me his room with 30 employees of under 30 who were doing social. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. And so what I saw was major labels in the streaming era are no longer the indispensable partner. So I'd say that major labels don't add
But it's possible to have a digital marketing team that's not the major label. You can produce your own stuff. Critically, distribution, you no longer need some huge relationship with a store or even app iTunes. You require those gatekeeper relationships. It's very easy to get your songs everywhere in the world for $20 a year, all of your songs.
Bob Shami (16:33)
Mm.
Correct.
Absolutely, yes. You get the tune chords, you know, all of them, yeah.
Peter Sinclair (16:55)
And then radio is not how artists break anymore. Radio is trail streaming, not the reverse. So what I saw was there are all these services that Label's trying to do. They weren't totally necessary. And because the label can't be one size fits all, I was at the point of the spear trying to sell these things that were not necessary. And I got a lot of resentment. And so then I started talking to Label presidents about it.
Bob Shami (16:58)
Correct.
Peter Sinclair (17:19)
I was new. said, guys, what am I doing wrong? Like, I'm not, I'm a big boy. You can tell me like, how do I change? And usually the conversation was you're, you're, you're doing fine. Your numbers are growing. it's not you. They also hate our radio team. They hate our digital team that I'm finally, after like the fourth conversation, I've learned it out. said, well, what are we just to check? And one of the major, one of the major label presidents literally started laughing at me. Like I was his nine year old son. like, yeah, dummy. And
But to be clear, I don't think that's true for every artist, but I think for about half the artists on the major label system, the label is just a check. And if that's the case, the label is a terrible way just to get a check, right? We are a much more efficient, much smarter, much leaner and more flexible tech. And then the manager can choose the services that the label would otherwise provide, cheaper, more nimble.
Bob Shami (17:57)
Mmm.
Peter Sinclair (18:12)
They can fire their marketing team if they don't like them two years in versus if you're in a major label deal, it's pretty hard to fire the label, right? So the pain of that experience of having to try and do that and getting the negative feedback sort of led to the insight. So
Bob Shami (18:20)
Yes.
Interesting. And that's what idea BeatBread came
Peter Sinclair (18:34)
Yeah, so the idea for Deep Red is how do we do the check if that's all that half the artists are there for, not all, but half, and then let them choose, right? I thought we could do the, if we could just focus on the check, we could do the check better and then give people choice.
Bob Shami (18:49)
Mm -hmm.
Let's talk about BeepRed. Let's break it down. The services from A to Z, if you don't mind. Because I'm intrigued and I'm sure our viewers and listeners at Soundbreakers and some of them are artists, upcoming artists or existing artists. They say, hey, you know what? BeepRed is the way to go. Please. I'm very intrigued. I want to know actually about the business concept and how does it work and how does it... And obviously, it does empower artists. And we're in an era right now where artists are gaining more and wanting more
Peter Sinclair (19:07)
Perfect. Yeah.
Wow.
Bob Shami (19:20)
because they know the game, they see what's happening. They say, well, what, you know what, as you said, you know, I don't think another beyond, you know, the majors, or if there's another Beyonce, she doesn't have to go the major label route. There's different routes you could do, yes.
Peter Sinclair (19:30)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right. So the way it works from an artist, and we also fund independent labels, to be clear, yeah, yeah. So you come to our website. You can type in information. We have APIs, a bunch of different streaming services, charting services. We pull down a bunch of data. And then we very quickly will give an estimate.
Bob Shami (19:39)
Whoa, that's the next thing we'll talk about. I'm interested to know that, yes.
Peter Sinclair (19:57)
that is actually flexible. The artist can choose, it, do they want a one -year deal? Do they want a 20 -year deal? Do they want to include new music in the deal that's unreleased or not? They want flow -through income. We give them a dashboard. That is just a range. Then they upload their distribution reports. And then we actually machine read all those reports and we rerun our model. So my co -founder, who's not on the call, is the brains behind all this. He's very, very good at this.
Bob Shami (20:25)
So if I may interrupt, so pretty much basically you do an AI or whatever technology you're using to evaluate, artist evaluation. And all this information the artist gives you, and then you'll say, okay, this artist is worth this much. Or that's what kind
Peter Sinclair (20:42)
on a particular term. So the artists can also adjust, they want a short -term deal, do they want it on just some of their music, do they want it on new music or not. So it's all, the other key point is not just that we can predict the future, which we've done very well. We've done about 1200 deals from as small as $1 ,000 up to $6 million.
Bob Shami (21:01)
Hey, if you have a prediction AI tools installed in your platform, great.
Peter Sinclair (21:06)
Yeah, so within the life of the company, and I'm not making this claim about every single deal, but in aggregate, it cost us 1 ,200 deals. Our collected cash flows to our predicted cash flows are within 2%. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And so we're really good at that. And then we make it very easy for the artist to choose the structure that works for them.
Bob Shami (21:19)
Wow, you've done 1200 deals? Amazing.
Peter Sinclair (21:34)
We've just started rolling out tools that allow them to run scenarios of different growth and actually see their cash flows and their impact. And even compare a deal with us with the deal outside. And the goal is we just want to them have informed trade -offs. And so there are times we tell someone, we can't beat that deal. You should take their deal, not ours.
And we think in the long run that's better for artists and better for us. So, yeah.
Bob Shami (21:59)
Now, so pretty much you fund the artist. Now this money that they get, is it for recording studio? Is it for marketing? What is it used for? Do you dictate that or once they get the check?
Peter Sinclair (22:12)
Most of the time, we don't dictate it. Now, there are times when we will co -invest with an independent label or a distributor who will earmark a portion of it, say, for, marketing. But 90 % of the time, we don't tell them anything. In practice, more than 60 % of the artists are using the money very directly to fund their next project, to shoot the video, to pay the producer,
Bob Shami (22:15)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (22:41)
through the digital marketing spend to pay for the video.
Bob Shami (22:43)
Can I ask how do you get your money back? How does BeepRate get their money back? If you cannot answer, that's fine.
Peter Sinclair (22:49)
Yeah. No, no, no, I can answer. So it's very simple, actually. we are advancing against digital revenues. So we're connecting with the distributor, and we work with hundreds of distributors. So the money that we're advancing against, it is then coming to us first. And then sometimes the artist is, we then pay through monthly a share to them, depending on how cool they choose.
Bob Shami (23:12)
Yes.
Peter Sinclair (23:13)
But we're attaching basically in the flow of funds upstream of the artist or upstream of the label. And that's how we collect our money. we don't collect on vinyl. We don't collect on touring. We do do publishing advances. We don't collect on merch. So only digital and digital publishing.
Bob Shami (23:27)
Only digital. Only digital.
I'm surprised you're not involved in collecting on Turing also because you're advancing the money. If sometimes the digital revenues doesn't come up, doesn't, you know, scale up or come up to the, what do you guys predict it? Then the money has to come from somewhere else, no?
Peter Sinclair (23:46)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that, that, yeah. So we have no legal claim on anything else. Um, and if you want to use our money for a tour or use our money for printing vinyl and selling it and keeping all that's all fine, there may be a time in the future when you see us making advances on tours, um, that will not be in 2024. Um, you know, stay tuned for that, but, but I'm not, I'm I'm, I'm sounding all cryptic, like there's some huge announcement coming. There may not be touring like.
Bob Shami (24:12)
Yes, you know, I'm asking a lot of questions also, a bit little tedious questions, because for our viewers and listeners who might not be familiar with your platform. Now, once you make the deal with the artist and you have a direct deal, you said we work with a lot of distributors. Now, obviously these days there's something they call the DSPs, which are the digital platforms. There's the distributors and there's also aggregators, you
So do you have a direct deal with them that your money comes to you first and then once it recoup, they stop paying him? Is
Peter Sinclair (24:44)
Yeah, we can attach at the distributor level for most distributors, not all. We do have relationships with some of the aggregators, where we can make an advance to an independent label or even a small distributor. We're attaching upstream of the distributor itself. And then we also have relationships that allows
to attach between the DSP and even the aggregator. So it all depends upon the situation, the best way to do that. But we've invested hard in all that.
Bob Shami (25:17)
Amazing.
What an amazing concept. Really, Peter, what an amazing concept. And if I may ask, the artists that comes to you, come to your platform, to your company, to a beat break, are they artists that established artists, ex -major label artists or independent artists?
Peter Sinclair (25:37)
Yeah, so we started mostly in artists in the 10 ,000 to half a million monthly listener range, but that was 2021. We still serve a lot of those artists. We're doing more than a deal a day. But we have since, in the last year in particular, started to fund artists
Bob Shami (25:49)
Mm
Peter Sinclair (26:04)
in the millions and in some cases, tens of millions of monthly listeners. Our first deal with an artist of that size, an artist named Ellie Duhey, we actually helped her get out of a situation with one of the major labels, who's been a great partner of ours, so I'm not gonna call them out, but that relationship was not going well for Ellie, and she had one hit called Middle of the Night. She was almost recouped, not fully recouped on the deal.
we were able to fund her to pay off her undercoup balance and fund against the future revenue of that song. And now she has two additional hits, which collectively are well over a billion streams. And she would have sort of been left floundering in her major label deal had we not been able to help her that. We're starting to do more deals like
and then we also do several, you know, seven figure independent label deals because. Independent labels play a really interesting role in the ecosystem. They are, they are those biotechs that I talked about earlier when I was comparing music to, to, to, music into the pharma industry. but you know, usually a major label, sorry, an independent label is not taking a long run ownership stake. The artist is maintaining a great deal of independence and autonomy.
But the independent labels providing great service, right? And so we think it's important to fund them as well. And so we started to do those.
Bob Shami (27:25)
Amazing. So how does beet bread make their bread? Somebody paid off. does so an artist fulfill you give them let's say a half a million dollar and they did fulfill the half a million now, obviously, you're not just in the exchange. There's always yeah you guys and again, can we ask
Peter Sinclair (27:28)
Yeah.
Our money costs money, like full stop. Now it's not a loan, meaning there's no interest. we over predict how something's going to do, there's no penalty, there's no interest that tolls up. We're to make back our money plus the cost of our money and then it's over. There's a percentage, but it doesn't toll up over time and
Bob Shami (27:46)
Yes. Yes.
Got it. So there is a percentage a percentage a certain percentage that Yes fair. absolutely very listen Listen, I mean, this is amazing. I mean It's it's a gift to a lot of artists actually really a gift, know your services and it's well worth every penny that you charge on top of your What do you give them? You know?
Peter Sinclair (28:09)
There's no personal.
And the other thing is the cost of the money depends upon the deal, right? If an artist wants to pick a shorter term deal that also has characteristics that have less risk, then that, you the amount of money on top of paying back is lower. If the artist wants to take a very long term deal and we're funding three new albums that haven't even been created yet and there's more risk, then the money is going to cost more, right? But it's, we don't do deals
Bob Shami (28:34)
Mm.
Hmm.
Peter Sinclair (28:49)
where the artist does not have greater than a 50 % share of the revenue versus you see often record deals or major label deals where it might be maybe 20 in the label's favor. Even if it's 50 -50, they also tack on like a 30 % distro fee off the top. So effectively it's a 65 -35 deal. So.
we tend to play in a zone where our money is less expensive. And from a selfish standpoint, not selfish is maybe the wrong word, we're in the singles and doubles business, meaning we need to make a very good prediction. We're not gonna lose a lot of money. We're not gonna make a ton of money on any given deal. And the artist should be in the vast majority of cases recouped and then on their way. Whereas the major label model is
it's a grand slam business. It's strike out nine times, make a grand slam once. And the problem with that model, sorry, my former colleagues, is every single artist is unhappy. The nine who didn't make it are never gonna recoup and are gonna always gonna potentially be trapped in that deal for potentially the life of their career. The one artist who is a grand slam is then giving
a huge amount of their income after they recouped. And they resent that fact. Even though the label, like, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, the label's not screwing anyone in that deal because, you know, the artists who made it forget that they have to fund everyone else and the label took a bet on them. But the result is still the same, that everyone's unhappy. And that's not how we play the
Bob Shami (30:10)
Yes.
Yes.
Interesting. What is the least amount of money be bread up fronted the
Peter Sinclair (30:34)
thousand
Bob Shami (30:35)
Wow, $1 ,000.
Peter Sinclair (30:37)
Yeah. the reason, by the way, that's hard. It's harder to do a thousand dollar deal than a two million dollar deal. Right. You still need
Bob Shami (30:46)
Did it make it? Did it make the thousand dollar back and more?
Peter Sinclair (30:49)
yeah, yeah, no, plenty of those. Yeah, but the point is, is you still need to paper it. You still need to diligence it. You still need the whole process. And so we've invested a lot in business process automation to do that. And we're really proud of that.
Bob Shami (30:55)
The process, yes. Yes. Yes, yeah. But still, amazing. Okay, what's the highest amount? I seen on your platform says three million, I think six million? Yeah. What is the most?
Peter Sinclair (31:08)
Yeah, we got to our website. We've actually done a deal now for more than six. And before the end of the year, we'll probably add a digit there to the. It's probably a $100 million deal by end of the year. I bet you before the end of year, have at least one or two deals that are more than $10
Bob Shami (31:14)
More than 6.
Amazing. Amazing.
Unbelievable. Peter, you know, this is pretty amazing, really. Now, I'm sure there's a lot of great success stories. Can you share one success story that you really kind of went through at BeepRed and you're very proud of and you still talk about it till this day with an artist?
Peter Sinclair (31:46)
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think the LED -HAI one on the high side is something I'm really, proud of. On the B2B side, I'm particularly proud of, and he doesn't, I'm just off the cuff here, I don't know if I'm mention it. There is a distributor called MAD Solutions, -A -D. They're in Houston, actually, you're in Houston. Houston and Lagos.
Bob Shami (31:52)
Yeah.
Peter Sinclair (32:08)
So a Nigerian company, Domisile in the US, that's now doing several hundred thousand dollars a month of collections and growing fast and in the mix for some of the biggest acrobeatarius. Because we're data -driven and because our North Star is empowerment of artists who might be otherwise neglected, it sort of resonated.
We wrote a pretty big check to a Nigerian entrepreneur, which a lot of more traditional investors, sending money to Nigeria is like a joke, right? And it's gone very well for him, very well for us. I'm very proud of that relationship as well. And then I think on the artist side, on the small end, there's really a ton.
I don't even remember the name of the artist, but I'll have to look it up and I can maybe email you afterwards. There was a kid who's 20 years old who lived in Montana, who's now got a, you know, he's still a developing artist, but he's got, you know, a couple hundred thousand monthly listeners. When we found, when he found us rather, we don't really find people, they find us. He had, you know, a few 10 ,000 and he could not have moved to Nashville without our advance.
It just, it was not possible. Like driving across the country, the gas, a couple of months of rent, you know, and so, you know, we started a music career there, right? And so there's lots of stories like that. Yeah, the sad part of it is I can't name most of our deals because we do so many.
Bob Shami (33:20)
Mm -hmm.
Amazing. Probably I could write a book about it.
It's all right. Yes.
Peter Sinclair (33:44)
It's something that makes me a little sad, whereas the first couple, I know them all by heart. But yeah, so that's the deal.
Bob Shami (33:50)
You know, what challenges did you face building Beep Bread? I mean, it's a gift to a lot of artists, honestly. But in the beginning, what were really the most difficult challenges? Did a lot of people say, hey, this is a loan shark company there, which is not.
Peter Sinclair (34:03)
Yeah, I I
Yeah, no, I mean, I think the two biggest challenges for us are one on the capital side, because, I don't have 200 million dollars to give to people like we have obviously gone to banks and other things. And then on the artist side, so, know, on the the on the. Capital side, you know, just convincing people that we're being smart, you
Bob Shami (34:13)
Mm
Peter Sinclair (34:36)
Traditional financiers hear music and they either they're like, I'll buy Bruce Springsteen. But this stuff that you guys are talking about sounds really weird and janky to me. And so showing with data and proving out that what we could do, you we, our first facility, funding facility was less than a million dollars. And, and you know, was friends and family and a couple of VCs that were colleagues of mine. was never working on VCs myself, but at different companies.
Bob Shami (34:53)
Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (35:04)
who sort of took a flyer on us and proving that out. now banks are fighting for our business, which is great. And then on the artist side, I love the music industry. Universal gave me an opportunity to be in the studio when some pretty iconic albums were finished. had no reason, no business being there. I'm not entitled to be, I sort of was, had, by the way, contributed nothing.
to the art there. you see how special all that is. So that's the great thing about the music industry. The bad thing about the music industry is it's sort of like a junior high cafeteria. Everyone's wondering what everyone else is doing. And until you're a thing, some managers won't touch you even if your deal is better.
That's been a challenge for us that we're slowly, I don't think we're even halfway to sort of dispelling. I don't think we're still the name that we can be. I think doing some of those bigger deals I talked about and publicizing them, you'll start to see that will help with that. yeah, I think just sort of breaking through that sort of, there's a bit of a sheep mentality in the music industry because, know, manager's number one job is not to be fired by their artists, right? And so they take a little risk averse.
Bob Shami (36:14)
Yes.
Peter Sinclair (36:17)
And so that's the other challenge for
Bob Shami (36:20)
You know, I'm surprised the major label didn't come in, maybe Universal or somebody, one of the top three. Say, hey, knock on your door. Say, Peter, you know what? You're doing what we're doing way much better and more efficient and you're saving money and you're making money. We want you to come and run our major label. He's $10 million a year. Come and run the Did you get an offer? Did you get an offer like this?
Peter Sinclair (36:30)
Mm -hmm.
No, no, no, no. Part, you sound like my father. I would not be qualified to run the smallest sub -label at Universal. In other words, it's important to know what you're good at and you're not good at. I
Bob Shami (36:46)
No, I said I'm surprised they didn't come and knock on your door often you just hop into the.
Well, you find the flaws of what they've done wrong and you created something and you've done 1200 deals, my friend. This is something to, you
Peter Sinclair (37:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, mean, yeah, but part of the power of what we do is we focus on one thing and then we let other people take care of the rest and let the artist choose. Like, labels are signed up for a lot of those other things.
Bob Shami (37:22)
Well, the guy at Universal, he was laughing at you and you said, check. And that was, they're in the same business. You said it, you gave him the S and he laughed. And he says, yes.
Peter Sinclair (37:31)
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, he's a very good guy, by the way.
Bob Shami (37:36)
Yeah, no, not saying but he actually, you know, and you went and did what they're
Peter Sinclair (37:40)
Yeah, yeah. Well, we're doing a subset of what they're doing, right? yeah, in my dream, if we're massively successful and our goal is to become the number one funder in the music industry, literally bigger than the major labels, and we'll see. But yeah, but in that world,
Bob Shami (37:43)
Yes, yes, yeah, you're not providing the distribution and others, but you've given him, yes, yes, the financing and the freedom and the freedom to choose. And that's what artists want.
I think you can, you're on your way. Nobody's doing it and it's needed.
Peter Sinclair (38:09)
the major labels still are promoting and serving a certain kind of artist and frankly deserve to be paid for that. Like that's valuable work, right? But it's not the whole thing. So,
Bob Shami (38:18)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Peter, how do you find time for something you're very passionate about, which is charity? And I'm sure your business takes about 90 % of your time. You and I know you need to balance between that, family and kids, and charity.
Peter Sinclair (38:30)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the honest answer is much less than I used to. But hopefully, we can make enough money that maybe that changes. But right now, we're in the belly of the beast. But you can't do everything all the time. You just burn out. So even if you're switching from one kind of work to another, it can be
Bob Shami (38:51)
Yes.
Peter Sinclair (38:55)
recharging in some way. You know, my wife would tell me you and she'd be right that I'm just pretty terrible at living a balanced life. But, you know, pretty much, you know, a couple of times a year I try and, you go to an event and write a check and also maybe pitch in and actually do some work for charity now and again, rather than just, you know, go to a dinner with a plate.
Bob Shami (39:11)
Yes.
Peter Sinclair (39:18)
Other than that, you know, I work and I take my kids places. And if I'm lucky, I might work out three days a week, but it's usually, let's be honest, more like two. And that's about it. My life is highly unbalanced. know, beef bread is almost the whole thing right now.
Bob Shami (39:35)
You know, it's definitely, it's been a great interview. Two more questions. And one, a lot of our listeners and viewers, when they watch this episode on Soundbreaker, they're gonna be inspired by your story and the way you carved your path into the music business and innovating into something new, but in the music business. And actually, more of a positive way to help and empower artists and give them more freedom. What is...
Peter Sinclair (39:39)
Yeah.
Bob Shami (40:01)
your advice for somebody who wants to kind of carve their own path into the music business and do their own thing or follow your footsteps,
Peter Sinclair (40:09)
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to give, like, I'm not a believer, like, in one particular floss, like, do this thing, because everything is a question of degree and pragmatism. But I think for me in my career, and hopefully I get better and better at it, is figuring out when to listen and when not to. Right? Like, I...
If I go back to sort of graduating from college and then McKinsey and then Provide, like, I at that stage in my career, I just had to listen and learn because there are people that were good at things that I had no idea how to do. And I just started to follow, right? There gets to be a point, and for some people it's faster than others. I am way older than your average founder. There gets to be a moment where
It's not that you don't listen to anyone, you still need to listen, but there are certain things that you just sort of say, nah, that's wrong. The conventional wisdom is X, but X is wrong for these reasons, right? And it's an acquired skill and you'll never always be right about that, but I think some people have developed over time a little bit of a skill at more often than not.
Bob Shami (41:16)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (41:25)
when the conventional wisdom or the conventional approach just doesn't make any sense, right? And I can't be more specific than that, but I think that's really the art. I think that's the art of being an entrepreneur is knowing when to do it and knowing when not to.
Bob Shami (41:30)
Interesting, yes.
Yes. Anything to be on the lookout for for BeatBread that you guys are to release this summer or we are in the middle of the summer or this year for our listeners, viewers and artists and people that who wants to join your platform.
Peter Sinclair (41:50)
Thank you for asking that question. yes, so actually about a week and half ago, and we were still in the midst of trying to publicize it more, we launched what's called the Beep Red funding network. So we provide capital using our algorithm and we always have and always will. What we are about, however, is providing empowerment and choice to artists.
Bob Shami (41:54)
Yes.
Peter Sinclair (42:16)
And we know that there are other funding sources out there. We are really good at predictions. And what we found is that distributors and independent labels and increasingly some deep pocketed investors want to co -invest with us using our data science and they will pay a premium from what we would pay if it was just our money alone. And
Artists can now come to BeepRed and if they qualify and artists in advance is going to be above 30 or $50 ,000, it's more likely not the artists will qualify. They can stay on their own distributor, their own set of partners, and they can get X and they may be to get more X if an external financial investor wants, or you can have a choice of offers from a series of independent labels and distributors where we're investing.
they're also investing and the artist gets even more than what we would otherwise invest. And it's all up to the artist. We never force an artist to go to this distributor or that label. What we found is some artists will choose to switch a distributor, but they won't go for the one that's offering the most money because they believe in those services and everything like this. And we really lay that out for them in a digital experience and lay out all the trade -offs, all the choices and let them model
Bob Shami (43:19)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Peter Sinclair (43:38)
And we're really, really excited about this because it is. Yes. Yes. Bebread .com and then hear your information and then we'll walk you through process. And if you qualify, there'll be opportunities to see not just one offer, but multiple offers and hopefully get the best deal. Whether it's our capital or
Bob Shami (43:40)
And this service is available at BeetBread right now? It is. Okay. Okay. So if anybody's interested, BeetBread. Yes, Beeted .com. Yes. Absolutely.
Well, Peter, I have to say, you know, what an amazing, inspiring story and insightful information on BeepRaid and the music business. I'm sure a lot of our listeners and viewers, the Soundbreaker artists and all of that, they will find this extremely informative and helpful. I want to thank you for joining us today. And this concludes today's episode of Soundbreaker. Please make sure to follow us on socials and stay tuned to new episodes. See you and thank you.
Peter Sinclair (44:12)
Thank
Thank
Thank